Dandie Dinmont

Looking good Chris (you have to finish this you know) and immediately, I can see that I’ve drilled the holes in mine in the wrong place. Back to the drawing board! Craig.

Good point! As you will see, I have taken heed of your advice. Aw shucks! Your Hurricane may be from the primordial age of modelling but I'll bet you make a great job of it anyway and at least the frames of the cockpit canopy will be in more or less the right place. That's a challenge I still have to face on this build. Anyway, I bet you're all agog to see how the weathering worked out. Be agog no more as I present you with... (descending swanee whistle effect)... this As you can see, I took @dogsbody's advice and ran rather too much highly diluted paint into the various cracks and crevices on the airframe. I also took @alt-92's experience to heart, rammed some blobs of clear plastic sprue softened over a candle into the holes where the wingtip lights should be to get an approximate shape, drilled small holes in the back and dripped what I hope is the appropriate colours into said holes before gluing them into place. Some extremely delicate sanding coming up in the next episode, I fear. I honestly don't know what to think about my tyro weathering efforts. I think my problem is that I don't possess an artistic bone in my body so I have great difficulty in picturing the effect I want. I think I need some inspiration so I'm going to spend the evening perusing one of those web sites which caters for gentlemen of a certain age and specialised interests. Anyone know the URL of 'Aeroplanes With Mud On'? Thanks for reading, Craig.

You’ll know that all that PE is in there and that’s all that matters right? I don’t know what you were worrying about, that’s looking great, especially after all the struggles you’ve had with it. I’ve had a look at your proposed colour scheme and you’re a braver man than me attempting that armed only with a hairy stick. I await further developments with interest! Craig.

I've just dipped my toe in the murky waters of weathering for the first time in my Hurricane build. So far, the jury is out on the results. In my experience, doing a WIP on this site, no matter how nervous you are about your skills, is a great way of getting advice and encouragement from your fellow modellers. Go for it! Craig.

Thanks for the tip Chris. I'll give that a go. Likewise! If I look closely, I can see a lot about the paint job I don't like (fuzzy lines between the colours and the like) but I'm prepared to live with it in the hopes of getting the thing finished. You've done great work on your hurricane so far, it would be a crying shame not to finish the job. Go for it! Craig.

Thanks. Are you going to do a WIP? I'd be interested in what the 109 is like. So far, I'm pretty impressed with the Spitfire. Craig.

In the end, I decided to bash on with drilling out the holes. I don't know if it'll be noticeable, other than on the seat frame by the open entry hatch, but I'll know it's been done. Rather than procrastinate any further, I started assembling the cockpit with fairly satisfactory results. Fired with enthusiasm, I tackled a job I had been dreading since deciding to make the ASR version of the kit, namely the clipping of the wings. I'd been wondering which tool to use for this. Scriber? Razor saw? Hacksaw? In the end, I went for the simplest option and used several light passes from a brand new number 11 blade. Not too bad. Driven mad by success, I also tackled cutting out the entry hatch on the fuselage side Again, no screw ups. This is getting scary. Encouraged, I started work on the wings. The spar and the bottom of the wing didn't seem to have quite the same shape I took the executive decision that the spar was probably the more correct. My reading of the previous builds of this kit had left me in no doubt that something would have to be done about the way the undercarriage legs attached and the popular opinion seemed to be that the best way to go about this was to glue the legs and attachment points together, drill a hole through the attachment points into the legs so that they could be braced with wire, then cut the legs off again and glue the attachment points into place. This I attempted, though I suspected that drilling the holes into the legs might push my skills to the extreme. It went quite well though, until I tried test fitting the attachment points and noticed that the wheel axles had a fairly startling degree of toe-out which I do not believe was a feature of the original aircraft. Could I have possibly glued the wrong leg to the wrong attachment point? Luckily, since I'm going to be cutting the legs off again anyway, I can fix things up later. Finally, I tried fitting the fuselage sides and tank cover together: Not looking too bad! Thanks for reading, Craig.

Many a long week has passed since I last updated this saga but progress has happened. Pleased with the glossiness of the Klear, I set to work applying the decals. These went down pretty well but unfortunately, I don't seem to have taken any photos of the finished article. Take my word for it, it looked great. And there things stood for a good while, partially because I was being distracted by the Hurricane's sister from Southampton but mainly because I knew that I was going to have to go where no modeller (or at least this modeller) had never gone before, into the weathering dimension. Yes, I have never weathered any of my previous models and indeed remain totally befuddled with the whole affair. All this talk of oil spots, washes and pin lines has me thoroughly confused. In addition, my wish to use only acrylics rules out many options. I did recall reading somewhere (and believe me, I wish I could remember where) about someone's technique of using a very little acrylic paint with a surfeit of water and Klear to produce a wash. So that's what I tried. A drop of Humbrol black, a drop of Humbrol brown, 10 drops of water and a random squirt of Klear (the syringe I was using to measure out everything slipped) finished off with a drop of flow improver and we had a small pot of dubious looking liquid. This was sparsely applied in the direction of the airflow with a wide brush. On top, I didn't notice much of a difference but underneath was a different story... Have I completely mucked the whole thing up? Join me next time as, armed with a damp cotton bud, I find out! Thanks for reading, Craig.

Many, many years ago, a friend and I visited the Bavarian film studios while suffering the effects of a visit to the Munich beer festival the previous evening, and were shown around the full sized set of the interior of a U-Boat they had built to film Das Boot. It was claustrophobic enough in there with my friend and a guide, I can only imagine what it must have been like with 59 other people in there and the constant danger of the head backfiring (though some of the odours my friend was producing gave a faint hint). You’ve made a fantastic job of that Clive, it looks incredibly realistic. Good job! Craig.

Tremendous effort Ced and the weathering really finishes them off! Craig.

I'm glad to see that my choice of the ASR version meets with general approval. That night fighter does look unusual though and so far, I'm finding this kit a pleasure to build. You know where this is going right? Yep, I bought another one. At less that a tenner, it would have been rude not to. I won't be tackling it as part of this build though, it will already be obvious that my rate of progress is slow enough as it is. One reason for this is the site I'm using as a reference for the cockpit interior, http://spitfiresite.com/2010/07/anatomy-of-spitfire-cockpit.html. This has proved an excellent resource, and the close correlation between these pictures and the details moulded on the cockpit walls is a credit to the Airfix design team. Unfortunately, having such a superb resource to hand means that I'v spent most of the time since my last update spotting things in the cockpit which weren't quite right and doing my best to fix them. First up the pilot's accommodation. Comparing pictures with the Airfix offering, the shape didn't look to bad at all but the seat was a reddish brown colour like nothing in my ever expanding paint collection. Not to worry, I added a little of this, a dash of that and came up with something that to my eye didn't look too bad at all. This was duly applied, job done. Re-admiring my work the next day, I couldn't help noticing that I'd failed to paint some parts of the seat completely, and that the coverage of the rest was not as consistent as I would have liked. A second coat was clearly required but of course I had none of my special mixture left and no idea of how I had made it. With a sigh, I whipped up another batch of Spitfire Seat brownie-red maroonish which in the right light (midnight in a coal mine) was not totally unlike the previous hue. This was applied: and the remaining paint stored thus ensuring that I will never need this particular colour again. Next my attention turned to the rudder pedals. These again weren't bad but, possibly due to the limitations in the moulding process, the pedals were a solid block with no opening for the pilot to put their feet in. A Swann Morton No. 12 proved adept at opening up a couple of apertures and equally adept at slicing open my thumb after a incautious attempt to wipe some waste material from the blade. Here's a top pro-modeller tip for you: Tamiya masking tape can be used to staunch heavy bleeding whist you attempt to mop up the gore now liberally covering your workbench (the last thing I need is for the cats with whom I share my man-cave to develop a taste for human blood). You don't get this sort of stuff in Airfix Magazine, you know. Finally, it began to look like I might be in a place to start glueing stuff together and make some progress. With every expectation of disaster, I applied the IP decal, accompanied by a plentiful supply of decal softener and it actually turned out pretty well All the bits were gathered and then mojo-killing disaster struck. While perusing this very site, I came across the magnificent Spitfire V and Spitfire I builds of @PlaStix and realised that my efforts to date had been nothing but the handless fumblings of a particularly clumsy child. What to do? Tuck the whole affair away at the back of a cupboard and take up freestyle Macramé? I decided to see if I could raise my game a little instead. I started off by opening up the lightening holes with my pin drill. Here's the before: and the after: I think that's right. To be frank, I have trouble telling the difference if I'm not wearing my Optivisor and thankfully the finished article is unlikely to be inspected by anyone so equipped. Hmm...

Gosh Heather, this is bringing back some childhood memories! Not because I ever flew in an Auster, or even saw one as a child, but because the Auster was the favourite mount of Biggles in his later books and I was a voracious consumer of Biggles books. I used to read his latest adventure and wonder what this aeronautical marvel he was so fond of actually looked like. I’ll follow along if I may and wallow in nostalgia for a time when things seemed much simpler. Craig.

Fellow modellers (for having gone though one of the rites of passage that all mere polystyrene botherers who aspire to true plastic mastery must endure, I feel I may finally address you as such), I invite you to peruse the contents of my first order from Hannants. The star item is of course the second (and I swear final) part of my Wingnut Wings buying binge and the etch and paints are for my current Spitfire build. Since it turns out that the Xtracrylic paints recommend thinning with plain water, it looks like the thinners will be called into service at cocktail hour. Cheers! Craig.

Hi Doggy, like you, I have a H&S silverline with a 0.2 nozzle and needle. I’m an airbrushing novice but I’ve never had any issues using model air straight from the bottle without any thinner or flow improver. Actually come to thing on it, I did suffer the same sort of symptoms you’re describing on one occasion but that was when I’d accidentally left the pressure regulator set to 35 psi after a cleaning session, instead of my usual 15 - 18 psi. It might seem counter-intuitive but you could maybe try reducing the pressure you’re spraying at? Other than that, all I can do is echo Paul’s advice and suggest you check the nozzle for blockages. Hope this is of some help, Craig.

You’ve done a really nice job in beating that into shape Dennis. Looking forward to seeing the finished article. Craig.

That looks great Dennis! I’m now being seriously tempted by their Pfalz D.iiia. Would look good sitting next to the Camel and apparently the rigging is pretty straightforward for beginners to cut their teeth on! Craig.

I scoffed at those weak-minded people who panic-bought such fripperies as pasta and loo roll when the current crisis kicked off. But when I read the rumours about Wingnut Wings over the weekend, well... Dispatched in record time by @Duncan B at Black Mike Models. I'm very ashamed of my lack of will power but having looked inside the box, I want more! I think I may have a problem. Craig.

Looking forward to this. I had the Matchbox incarnation of this kit in my stash many many years ago, along with the 1/32 Tiger Moth but they both disappeared during a house move. I’m keen to see what I missed out on! Craig.

Like many of us, I'm sure, I find it helpful to have more than one project on the go at a time so that while waiting for glue to set, paint to dry or enthusiasm to rekindle on one project, you can do some work on another. My Hurricane build is proceeding apace but having finished up a couple of long-term projects which will be appearing in the RFI section as soon as I can figure out how best to photograph them while disguising their manifest failings, I was in the mood to start something new. Scanning my mini-stash, my eyes fell upon this: I should make it clear that I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the Airfix Modellers Club but Wonderland, one of my local model shops, seems to have acquired a truck-load of these at some point. I bought this particular example at the East Fortune Airshow last year. You can tell because the box is still damp. So, first decision, which marking option to make? This: or this? That night fighter looks very good, and promises an easily applied paint scheme with a highly attractive lack of masking, but in the end, and as spoiled by the title of this topic, I've always had a real fondness for the clipped cropped and clapped LF Vb (clipped because the wings were clipped to improve roll rate, cropped because the supercharger was cropped to improve low level performance and clapped because the airframes recycled to produce this mark were, erm, not in the first flush of youth) so that's what it's going to be. The mandatory sprues shot: I was going to say that this will be the first time I have strayed from the one true scale of 1/72 but actually I have a vague memory of working on a never-completed Esci 1/48 Tornado when I was but a stripling modeller. The hope is that 1/48 will prove more compatible with my generally failing faculties. Join me as I find out whether this is the case or if I should start contemplating 1/24 scale. Craig.

Admiring the sleek lines of the work in progress, I realised that they were just a little too sleek. Yes, I'd forgotten to attach, and worse still paint, the radiator and air intake. Both were hastily attached, unwanted seams smoothed in with PPP and, for once listening to my own advice about the folly of brush painting Model Air, masked up for spraying with broadly satisfying results The masking was removed and all looked well. Except, was that line between the black and white running down the exact middle of the radiator? No, it was not. Remask and try again. That looked better but it now became obvious that the dividing line on the fuselage was not quite straight, when compared with the radiator. More masking. For the next few days, the demarcation on the fuselage advanced and retreated like the front line in a particularly frisky campaign until finally we had this: It's by no means perfect but it's not keeping me awake at night any more. Incidentally, you will note that I have removed the Blu Tac which I was using the mask the undercarriage bays and radiator openings. I have a request for you, readers of Britmodeller. If ever, in any of my future builds, it looks like I am contemplating using Blu Tac as a masking medium again, I beg you to write in in droves telling me not to be an idiot and to use some damp sponge instead. The stuff is a nightmare to extract from cavities and the only really successful technique I have found, dabbing away at the stubborn bits with another lump of Blu Tac, quite often removes chunks of paint as well. Still, it's done and I decided that before attaching the doubtless frail and easily broken undercarriage, I would get the decals on. To this end, a coat of Klear, or at least the modern equivalent available from Lakeland, was applied. I use a wide soft brush for this as I'm terrified of letting the stuff anywhere near my airbrush but the end results weren't bad: I might give it another coat before applying the stickers but the end is in sight! Thanks for reading, Craig.

Glad to see your mojo survived the Lysander incident PC. I shall be following this build with interest. Oh, and I liked the video too. More please! Craig.

When we left our hero, he had just, despite the best efforts of Storm Dennis, applied the first coat of dark green to the topsides of the Hurricane. Further inspection confirmed that this didn't look too bad, all in all, so a second coat was applied. As I think I mentioned in a previous post, the plan was to use the free Arma masks for the camouflage pattern. Never having tried this before, I thought I'd better give it a go on my long-suffering paint mule first which, by happy coincidence was already sporting a coat of dark earth. The masks were applied using the 'little worms of Blu Tac along the edges of the mask' technique and after the Hurricane had received its second coat, the airbrush was directed towards the mule. The results were pleasing to my eye and so encouraged, the Hurricane was masked up: and some dark earth applied. Showing great restraint, I waited a whole hour before tearing off all the masking to reveal: Not bad but there were a couple of issues, both caused by the 'worms of Blu Tac' technique. The first was that in a couple of places, the edge of the mask had come away from the surface slightly resulting in a blurred demarkation between the colours. The second was that not all the Blu Tac came away with the masks. Mostly I was able to get it off by dabbing at it with a bigger blob of Blu Tac but in a couple of areas, most noticeably on the port wing, the paint seemed to have lifted with the Blu Tac. I might have done better to have waited a little longer before beginning dabbing. I might also have done better to use something like spraymount adhesive to fix the masks in place but I would be worried about how much paint it would take off with it. Further experimentation required. The Vallejo Model Air paint goes on well but you'd better be very sure you won't want to do any further work on the finish afterwards because in my (limited) experience, the stuff starts peeling off in great swathes at the mere sight of the finest of Micromesh cloths. When this happens, all you can do is cut around the edges of the affected area and do your best to fill in the gaps. You can't even feather the edges of the gap because that will just lead to further peeling. If anyone knows how to get around this, please share the secret (if the secret is "use another brand of paint", I've already thought of that). Anyway, touch ups were done brush painting the Model Air which doesn't really work (to be fair, it's not what it's designed for) but is ok if the area is small enough. Now there was the issue of the underside of the starboard tailplane which had caught some black overspray. Knowing that trying to brush paint the Vallejo Insignia White wouldn't work well, I decided to try another couple of whites I had to hand, Humbrol H34 and Tamiya XF-2 flat white. I only had a starter set pot of the H34. It had separated a bit so without thinking, I plunged the business end of my electric paint stirrer into the pot and let fly. Readers, you will be AMAZED to learn that the paint did not rise out of the pot in a great wave and cover me, the cats, the Hurricane and anything else within range. Sometimes, even idiots get lucky. Even luckier I tried both options out on a couple of spare bits first because it soon became clear that neither was a great match. So it would have to be the Vallejo after all. Despite all I've written about about how Model Air doesn't brush, I tried it anyway, liberally laden with thinner and flow improver in the hope of getting a smoother finish. The results were...not good. It's only the underside of the tailplane. Who would know? Sadly, the answer to that was 'me' and I knew I couldn't live with it. Cotton buds were charged with paint thinner and applied to the offending area until I had this Unfortunately, on turning over the model, I also had this This is normally the point in my builds when alarms sound, lights flash, my mojometer pegs on empty and the kit is consigned to the back of a cupboard. I am that most mournful of creatures, a perfectionist who lacks the skills to produce the quality of work he craves and when things start going wrong (which is usually about the point that paint starts getting seriously involved), my interest wanes and the bench remains unvisited while I entertain myself with other pursuits. This time however, possibly because I've been enjoying writing this WIP, I soldiered on. The overspill on the top side came off with some very tentative swipes of a thinner soaked cotton bud and then I did what I should have done in the first place, masked everything up again and used the airbrush (the picture below looks vaguely surgical to me for some reason) and paint was applied, including to some bits I'd forgotten about like the undercarriage door and the spinner (which will be yellow eventually but needed a light undercoat) Took about 10 minutes, including the time to clean the airbrush. Why didn't I just do this in the first place? Because, as I think I mentioned above, I'm an idiot. Assuming all is well when the masking comes off, I hope to get the gloss coat and the decals on in the next day or so. Craig.

Glad you’ve landed safely PC and the new grotto looks great. I particularly like the chemical toilet seen at the right of your first photo, presumably there to maximise your precious time at the bench. That’s what I call forward thinking! Craig.

Best of luck with the move. And if it does all go horribly wrong, think of the amusing stories you’ll have to tell in twenty years or so when you’ve recovered from the experience! Craig.

As if moving house wasn’t stressful enough. I have a suggestion how you can benefit from this unexpected intermission. Why not buy one of those starter kits with glue, paint and brush included and see what kind of job you can make of it using your penknife and Mrs P’s nailfile. It’ll be a way of honing your skills. If you’re feeling really brave, you can get the boys involved and win some brownie points from Mrs P for keeping them distracted for a while! Craig.